


Starting Over

by flutterflap



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Fix-it: s04e13 Journey's End, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-06
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutterflap/pseuds/flutterflap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS lands in Cardiff with a mysteriously ill Doctor on board.  </p>
<p>A Journey's End fix-it fic, originally posted on LJ in 2008-9, under hence_the_name</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Something’s wrong,” Jack said.

Martha peered toward the main part of the Hub, though she couldn’t see him from where she stood in the sunken, white-tiled well of the medical gallery. Gwen, Ianto, and Mickey were out doing cleanup after an alien spaceship crash the night before: salvaging what they could from the wreck, collecting statements, and retconning the witnesses, leaving Martha and Jack alone in the Hub. Martha had just finished performing an autopsy on the ship’s lone occupant, a soft, child-sized, vaguely humanoid creature that had died not long after they’d arrived on the scene. Jack was supposed to be sorting the paperwork with UNIT, but he had spent the better part of the morning hanging over the railing and watching her work when he wasn’t pacing around or tinkering with various bits of alien tech.

“When isn’t it?” she called back.

“I’m serious. Come here.”

Martha took one last, sad look at the creature on the slab and then pushed the drawer in. She peeled off her gloves. dropped them in the biohazard bin and washed her hands before she went up the stairs. Jack was standing in front of the bank of monitors arrayed above Tosh’s old desk, his arms folded across his chest. He didn’t look at her as she approached.

“What is it?”

He inclined his head toward the rightmost monitor. “Look.”

The monitor showed the Plass outside, teeming at the lunch hour with men and women in suits, swirling to and fro and eddying about in the sunshine, oblivious to the tall blue box standing just outside the shadow of the fountain.

“It’s been there for an hour,” Jack said.

“No one’s come in or out?”

“Nope.”

“He’s probably just refueling,” Martha said, trying to ignore the unease beginning to knot in her stomach. “You know how he is: universe to save, no time for pleasantries.”

Jack quirked an eyebrow, glancing sidelong at her. Martha sighed. “Something’s wrong,” she agreed. If the Doctor had wanted to avoid them, he wouldn’t have materialized the TARDIS within view of their CCTV cameras. “He couldn’t give us time for a good night’s sleep between emergencies, could he?” she asked, shrugging out of her lab coat.

Jack gave a wry laugh and turned toward the stairs to get his coat. “What would be the fun in that?”

Martha sighed. Her medkit was still on her desk where she had dropped it that morning. She double-checked her supplies while she waited for Jack. They rode the lift up to the Plass in silence.

***

Jack fitted his key into the TARDIS door and pushed it open carefully. “Doctor?” he called. The low hum of the time ship was the only answer. Martha’s step sounded hollow on the metal grating beside him. Jack peered across the platform toward the door that led deeper into the TARDIS and called out again. Nothing.

“This isn’t right,” Martha said, looking around. “Where is everyone?”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know.” He raised his voice. “Donna? Rose?”

Martha burst into motion beside him. “Doctor!” She raced past him up the ramp and around the console. Jack trotted after her, relief vying with a fresh wave of fear when he came around the console and saw him. The Doctor lay facedown on the grating, perfectly still, one arm outstretched as if he had tried to catch himself when he fell. Martha dropped to her knees beside him and bent so she could see his face. “Doctor?” He didn’t respond.

Jack knelt and helped her roll him over onto his back, cradling the Doctor’s head in his lap. The diamond-shaped pattern of the grating was imprinted on his cheek. “Doctor?” Martha said again, leaning over him. She glanced up at Jack as she fitted her stethoscope in her ears, her eyes fearful. Jack could only shake his head in response, keeping silent while she listened first to one side of his chest, and then the other.

The release of tension in her shoulders told Jack what he needed to know before she spoke. “Both still beating,” she said, hanging the stethoscope around her neck. “Too fast, though.” She leaned back over the Doctor and said his name again, patting his cheeks lightly. His eyelids fluttered. “That’s it. Come on, wake up.”

He blinked at her. “Martha?”

Martha smiled. “That’s right. Look, Jack’s here, too, yeah?” She pointed. The Doctor looked, but he didn’t really focus. Glazed eyes slid over Jack’s face and then closed again.

“Doctor!” Martha leaned over him, cupping his face in her hands. His eyelids fluttered again. “Stay with us. What happened? Where is everyone?”

He swallowed hard. His breathing was growing labored. “I can’t—”

“Can’t what?”

He shook his head as much as he could in Martha’s grasp and closed his eyes again. “Come on,” she muttered, letting go of him and turning to dig in her medkit.

Jack bent down and stroked the Doctor’s forehead, trying to soothe him. His skin felt warm, Jack realized with alarm; warmer than a human’s. “We need to get him to the medbay,” he said, because moving was better than standing still. He shifted so he could scoop him up in his arms and got to his feet. The Doctor moaned.

“Jack!” Martha scrambled after him. “Be careful! He could be hurt, or—“

“We’d have to move him eventually,” Jack grunted as he carried him down the opposite ramp. The TARDIS had put the medical bay across the hall from the console room. Jack laid the Doctor on the examining table. “I don’t think he’s injured. He’s sick. Feel him, he’s hot.”

“I know,” she said, checking him quickly for injuries anyway. She took a thermometer from her bag and swiped the sensor across his forehead, holding it against his temple until it beeped. She frowned at the readout, then turned it so Jack could see.

He let out a low whistle. “Thirty-nine point eight,” he read aloud.

“That’s a high fever for a human,” Martha said. “His regular body temperature’s more like fifteen.”

“What do you think’s causing it?”

“I don’t know. It could be a virus, or a bacterial infection, or...” She returned the thermometer to her medkit and flipped a switch on the wall near the counter. Jack stepped back from the table as a piece of equipment on a hinged arm descended from the ceiling and came to a stop just below eye level. Martha reached up, pulled it closer to her and paused, frowning at the controls. She hesitated a moment, then pushed a series of buttons. The machine hummed to life and she grinned, glancing up to catch Jack’s raised eyebrows. “Scanner,” she said. “I made the Doctor show me around the medical bay.”

Jack smiled back. “I wouldn’t expect anything different,” he said.

She pushed a few more buttons and repositioned the scanner over the Doctor. “It should identify any microorganisms that might be making him sick. Not that we’ll necessarily know how to treat it,” she continued, muttering to herself now, “but it’ll be a start, at least.”

Jack took another step back, watching her work and feeling a bit useless, with nowhere else to carry the Doctor and nothing to shoot at. He had spent his share of time in the TARDIS medical bay and knew his way around it pretty well, though mostly it was from being on the receiving end of its equipment. He had even slept a few nights here and there in the bed at the far end of the room, waking once wrapped so tightly in stiff gray fabric that he had been unable to move until the Doctor did something on a control panel attached to it and the fabric softened around him and fell away.

“Portable stasis chamber,” the Doctor had told him cheerfully as he removed Jack’s IV and disconnected him from the various monitors surrounding the bed, ignoring Jack’s grumbling.

Jack flushed at the memory. He had gotten himself pushed into a glacial lake after picking a fight in a moment of foolish bravado, ruining what should have been a pleasure trip on the ice moon of Laja-Ra. By the time they’d fished him out, he was nearly frozen and had spent 36 hours unconscious in the medical bay.

He shook his head, clearing away the memory. He had been a different man back then. They both had. “Anything?” he asked.

Martha shook her head, frowning, her eyes still on the display. “Nothing.” She looked up at him. “It can’t find anything wrong with him. His temperature’s off the charts, and his heart rate is way too fast, but...” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Nothing,” she repeated. She turned the scanner off and pushed it away. On the table, the Doctor stirred.

Martha thought for a moment, then turned back to her medkit and took out a sealed phlebotomy kit and a pair of surgical gloves. “Take off his jacket and roll up his sleeve, will you?” she asked, half-turning toward Jack as she pulled the gloves on.

He nodded, glad to have something to do. Draping the Doctor’s arm around his shoulders, Jack sat him up and peeled his jacket from his shoulders. The Doctor’s eyelids fluttered when Jack lowered him back down. He moved his head restlessly on the pillow.

Jack bent over him. “Doctor?”

He didn’t respond, but he whimpered softly when Martha pierced the vein in the crook of his elbow. “It’s all right,” she soothed, squeezing his hand. They watched his blood flow red down the tube into the vial in silence. Martha untied the tourniquet from his arm and withdrew the needle, pressing a gauze pad against his arm. He moaned again, blinking and then closing his eyes.

“...burning,” he whispered.

“Doctor?” Jack took Martha’s place at his side, holding the gauze in place with one hand and cupping the Doctor’s cheek with his other. He stroked his temple with his thumb. “What is? What’s burning you?”

Martha set the vial on the counter and took off her gloves before she turned back them, exchanging a worried look with Jack. She grasped the Doctor’s hand. He moved his head on the pillow, looking back and forth between them. His breathing sounded thick and painful. “The regenerative energy. I can’t...” He trailed off into a moan, squeezing his eyes shut. “My head.”

“Okay, okay.” Martha squeezed his hand. “Just tell us what you need. How can we help?”

He didn’t answer. Martha made a frustrated noise and straightened. Then she strode around to the end of the table and started tugging his trainers off. “We should get him into an ice bath,” she said. “Try to get his fever down. Maybe we can get him conscious long enough to tell us something useful. I can analyze his blood sample in the lab while you’re doing that.”

“Wait a minute,” Jack said. “I have an idea. Rose said something about tea.”

Martha paused, still holding one of the Doctor’s trainers in her hand. “She said something about getting together for tea and you’re worrying about that now?”

“No! She said he got sick after his last regeneration, and that was what cured him.”

“Tea,” Martha repeated, sounding unconvinced. She looked down at the Doctor. “You think that’s what this is? Regeneration sickness?”

“Have you got a better idea?” Jack asked. “He said he’s hot because of regenerative energy.”

Martha shook her head. “He’s also running a fever more than twice his normal body temperature. He’s delirious, Jack.”

Jack deflated. He looked back down at the Doctor and reluctantly nodded. She had a point. “Still. It couldn’t hurt, could it?” he asked, looking back at her.

She pursed her lips, letting his shoe fall to the floor. “I don’t suppose it could,” she replied. She gave a nod. “You do that. I’m going to analyze his blood sample. I’ll be in the lab if you need me.” She got the vial from the counter and was halfway out the door when she paused. “Jack.” He turned. “If there isn’t an immediate result, get him into an ice bath, yeah? He can’t run that hot for that much longer.”

Jack smiled, but it was half-hearted. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

Martha smiled briefly back before she disappeared into the corridor.


	2. Chapter 2

The TARDIS laboratory was just as Martha remembered it: huge, bright, and full of half-finished projects cluttering every available surface. She paused inside the doorway and took a deep breath. The laboratory was her favorite room on the TARDIS, though she suspected the Doctor himself favored the library or possibly the garden. She had always been inclined to science, and laboratories in general made her feel calm. In control. Very often it seemed like the only place in her life where she had any control at all, with her parents and siblings always pushing and pulling her every which way.

Not that she felt particularly in control now, she thought ruefully. She cleared a space on one of the lab benches, set the vial in a stand, and stood for a moment, chewing her lip. The scanner should have picked up anything that she might detect in any blood tests. The vial in front of her was as much the result of falling back on basic medical science as anything else.

She was still thinking when she became conscious of a clicking noise coming from somewhere in the room. She looked around. A moment of scanning the equipment littering the benches located its source: a plain, flat box with several gauges on the top. She pulled it toward her, frowning. It was an energy gauge, the Doctor had told her, and then waved her off by saying that it was complicated. It measured things like rift energy, not the charge on a battery. 

It clicked again, and all the needles jumped.

Rift energy and...regenerative energy? Experimentally, she reached out and pulled the stand holding the vial of his blood closer to the instrument. The needles jumped farther this time. She stared at it. Then she got a clean pipette and dropped a bead of his blood onto the sensor at the front. The needles went wild for a moment, waving back and forth, and then settled, some along the middle of the scale, others closer to the top.

She hopped off her stool and darted back up the corridor to the medical bay. Jack had the Doctor propped up against him and was holding a cup for him to sip from. “That was quick,” he said as she entered.

“I think you were right,” Martha responded, coming to stand on the Doctor’s other side. “I was getting energy readings from his blood sample. I can’t make heads or tails of them, but...” She spread her hands. “How is he?”

“I think you can ask him yourself in a minute,” Jack responded. He set the cup aside and lowered the Doctor gently back down. She could already see an improvement: the feverish flush was leaving his cheeks and his breathing sounded easier.

“Doctor?” Martha asked. He stirred and opened his eyes, blinking slowly up at the two of them, looking confused. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

He raised a hand to his head and shut his eyes again. After another moment he pushed himself upright, swinging his feet around to the side of the table. Martha took a step back to give him room. He ran a hand through his hair. “Hello,” he said, with that daft smile of his. “Sorry, I don’t seem to—” 

The smile vanished. His eyes grew very large. “I don’t—” he repeated, and broke off again, one hand coming up to his throat. “That’s—different.” He looked down at himself, turning his other hand over so he could look at it. He exhaled slowly, as if trying to remain calm. “That’s—also, different.” Finally he looked at her again, studying her face, but Martha saw no sign of recognition in them. He seemed to gather himself for a moment, and then he gripped the edges of the table in both hands and launched himself, hitting the floor lightly and disappearing into the corridor, leaving Martha and Jack to stare, dazed, after him.

***

They found him in the wardrobe room, standing in front of the mirror and touching his face gingerly with one hand. His gaze flickered to them in the mirror when they appeared behind him and then back to the unfamiliar features of his own face, wide-eyed with shock. 

“I regenerated.” The voice that came out was a slightly higher tenor than he was used to, the accent more refined. It went with his new face, the sharp features softened by liquid brown eyes and freckles and a mess of unruly hair that he already knew would never behave no matter how much gel he applied.

The two people standing behind him exchanged a troubled look. The woman took a tentative step forward. “Doctor,” she began.

He didn’t give her time to finish. Turning, he went deeper into the wardrobe, sorting through the clothes until he found what he was looking for and emerged with it into another dressing area. The worn leather jacket hung loose on this new frame, but the weight of it felt good on his shoulders. Familiar. He sank onto a threadbare velvet sofa wedged between a floor-to-ceiling rack of shoes and an open trunk overflowing with scarves and tried to pretend he wasn’t trembling.

He should be used to this by now, but he wasn’t. Not like this. Not waking up in a new body with no recollection of how he had come to be there. Even his companions were strangers to him.

They followed him, of course. He could always count on his companions to do that. “Sorry,” he said when they appeared at the far end of the little alcove. He pinched the bridge of his nose so he didn’t have to look at them. “My memory’s a bit fuzzy. I’m afraid I don’t—” He broke off. _I’m afraid I don’t know who you are,_ he was going to say. He let his hand fall and smiled brightly at them. “I’m afraid I don’t remember your names.” He could see himself in the mirror from where he sat, and he saw his smile falter when they looked at each other and didn’t answer right away.

The man stepped forward this time, extending his hand and opening his mouth to speak. The Doctor couldn’t help it; he recoiled, flinging up a hand as if to shield his eyes. “Don’t—come any closer. Please.” Hurt flashed across the man’s face, but he stayed where he was, his arm falling to his side. “Sorry,” the Doctor repeated. He had moved as far as he could against the arm of the sofa, and he leaned against it, covering his eyes with one hand. “You’re very...bright.” He grimaced, knowing how idiotic it sounded. _Bright_ hardly did justice to the way the man shone, making the universe ripple with his every breath. He felt too warm in his jacket but he huddled in it, pulling it around himself. He took a shaky breath, eyes still closed against his hand.

There was a rustle of movement, and then the couch cushions shifted beside him. He sat very still. “Doctor?” The woman’s voice. “I’m Martha. That’s Jack. We’re your friends, yeah?”

He nodded. He didn’t doubt that; the TARDIS would never have let them find him if she didn’t know and trust them, even this man who blazed so bright and constant in the fabric of time that he contravened everything the Doctor thought he knew about the universe, made him want to shudder and hide.

She shifted again and he felt her hand on his forehead, warm and dry. After a moment it shifted to the back of his neck. “Still have a fever,” she said, sitting back. He looked up to see her fitting the stethoscope that had been around her neck into her ears. She warmed it in her hand before she held it up, a questioning look on her face. He nodded, and then a small smile touched his lips.

“I’m traveling with a doctor,” he said, and he couldn’t help feeling delighted by the fact, despite everything.

Martha froze for an instant, staring at him. Then she gave him a tight smile and tugged at the open collar of his shirt, slipping the stethoscope under it. 

“Heart rate’s still up,” she said when she had finished, removing the earpieces and letting the stethoscope hang. She glanced at Jack. The Doctor looked at his hands. They were silent for a moment.

“How did it happen?” he asked. His voice sounded rough.

They both looked at him blankly. “The regeneration,” he prompted. “What happened?”

They exchanged another look, as if deciding who should speak. At last Martha touched his arm and said, very gently, “You didn’t regenerate, Doctor.”

“ _What?_ ” His voice squeaked alarmingly and he clamped his mouth shut. He jumped to his feet and paced backwards a few steps, looking from one to the other. “What do you mean, I didn’t regenerate? I’m _still_ regenerating, I can feel it.” He gestured to his face. “And I did _not_ look like this the last time I checked. Although—” He peered toward the mirror, considering, and reached up to run a hand through his hair. “—I think I rather like it.”

“Doctor.” Martha’s voice was full of sympathy. He turned back to her. “You did. I traveled with you for more than a year, and you looked like that the whole time.”

He stared at her. “Traveled,” he repeated. Past tense. “Not anymore?”

She shook her had sadly.

With effort, the Doctor looked at Jack. He looked down, spreading his hands. “Sorry, Doc.”

The energy that had surged through him a moment ago drained away. He made his way slowly back to the sofa and sat, resting his elbows on his knees and his forehead in his palms. “Where’s Rose?” he asked after a moment.

There was silence. He looked up. “What?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he took in their expressions. “What is it, what’s happened?”

Martha closed her mouth. “I—It’s—Nothing. You know who Rose is?”

“Of course I know who Rose is!” He looked frantically back and forth between them. “What’s happened to her?”

“She’s gone, Doctor,” Jack said, his voice soft. He moved as though he wanted to cross the room to him, but he caught himself, crossing his arms over his chest instead.

“Gone?” he repeated, his voice papery thin.

“She’s in a parallel universe.”

“She’s all right?”

“She’s fine. She’s with her family.”

The Doctor struggled to bring himself back under control. She was fine. Of course she was fine, his Rose. He was the one who had never been fine. She would have a good life, he thought; a fantastic life. The life she deserved. He fell back against the cushions and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “When?” he asked. “How?”

Instead of answering, Jack sat down on the lid of an overflowing trunk and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking at him quizzically. “Doctor. What’s the last thing you remember?”

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer and then closed it, suddenly uncertain. “I...don’t know,” he said, the realization coming with the words. 

“Where was the last place you went?”

He opened his mouth and closed it without speaking. He shook his head. The room was beginning to close in on him.

“How did you and Rose meet?” Jack persisted.

“I don’t—” His voice broke. He remembered Rose, but he couldn’t remember a thing about her, anyplace they’d gone together, anything they’d done. The last thing he _could_ remember clearly, he wished he could forget. He looked down at himself, for the first time taking in the pinstripe pants, the light blue shirt and tie. Not the clothes he remembered wearing. More than just Rose was missing from his memories.

He was having difficulty breathing. “Do I always go barefoot?” he mumbled. Black spots obscured his vision. 

“Jack.” Martha’s voice sounded distant, her tone reproving. He felt her arm go around his shoulders. “It’s all right,” she said, giving him a squeeze.

He gulped a breath down. “I can’t remember.”

“Shh.” Martha rubbed his back. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

_For a moment the room splits and her voice echoes. ”Just stay calm. You saved me, now I return the favor.” They’re falling toward the sun and the fire of it rages within him, burning out his hearts._

He picked his head up and stared at her, jolted out of his panic. Martha stopped and stared back. “What?”

He blinked. “I—nothing. I thought—” He shook his head.

Jack shifted on his seat on the trunk. “I think we’d better start from the beginning,” he said.

The Doctor took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, looking right at him. “I think you’d better.”


	3. Starting Over

The Doctor held Jack’s gaze for almost a full minute before a shiver ran through him and he looked away, dropping his gaze down to his hands. Jack tensed. There were times when he thought he had reached his peace with the cosmos for what had happened to him, even thought he had reached his peace with the Doctor, but his recoil the moment Jack tried to approach brought all the pain and anger of those early years after the Gamestation surging back, surprising him with their intensity. _Bright._ What the hell did that mean?

It didn’t help that he couldn’t blame the Doctor for shrinking from him; the bewilderment in his face was too familiar. It had been decades since Jack had given serious thought to the two years of his life that the Time Agency had taken from him—two years were hardly a drop in a life that would stretch out over centuries—but he remembered all too well the terror and confusion that had followed their loss. Jack had crawled into a bottle and stayed there for weeks.

And the Doctor had lost far more than two years. If his response to encountering a spatiotemporal anomaly such as Jack was to ask him to keep his distance, well, Jack could hardly be angry at _him._ At least he hadn’t run away. At least he hadn’t called him _wrong._

Jack took advantage of the Doctor’s averted gaze to look closely him, wrapped in that leather jacket like it could keep him safe. His last incarnation had been prickly at best when Jack met him, and he had always suspected that Rose had smoothed over some his sharp edges by the time Jack came along. This wasn’t that Doctor. Whatever had happened, it had pushed him back to something much earlier, more vulnerable and more haunted.

But he remembered Rose. The Doctor remembered Rose and not him. Jack had always known where he stood in the Doctor’s hearts when it was the three of them, but the evidence of it made him ache in a place he thought he’d long since forgotten. More to the point, it didn’t make any sense. How could the Doctor have lost two entire lifetimes and still have Rose?

Why Rose and not Jack?

He cleared his throat. No sense dwelling on that. Not right now, anyway. “Right,” he said, clasping his hands and trapping them between his knees. “The beginning.” When was that? The end of the universe? No; before. “I met you and Rose in London, in 1941. You were still—” He gestured toward the leather jacket. “There was a girl named Nancy, and I tried to con you.”

The Doctor leaned forward again with his elbows on his knees, studying the floor in front of Jack’s feet as he listened. The first part of the story was easy to tell: London, 1941; Cardiff, 2005; everything in between. Beside the Doctor, Martha listened as well, her face rapt. She’d not heard most of these stories, and for a little while Jack lost himself in the telling, until they arrived at the Gamestation. He paused and took a deep breath before he continued, not intending to spare either of them the details. But when he reached the end, he found he didn’t want to tell the Doctor what he had done and why. And so he left it out, saying only, “You and Rose defeated the Daleks, and then you went to London. Christmas Day.” He forced a smile.

There was a silence. The Doctor glanced at him, quickly searching his face before he dropped his eyes back down to the ground. “I left you behind.”

Jack sighed. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

Jack winced. Of course he would ask. Too much to hope he would let it go by. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

“It really doesn’t.”

The Doctor caught and held his gaze this time, suddenly commanding. “Tell me.”

Jack glared back. He took full advantage of the Doctor’s discomfort with him, daring him to look away. “You sent Rose away. You tricked her into the TARDIS and you sent her back home, but she wouldn’t leave you. She looked into the heart of the TARDIS and she came back. She defeated the Daleks, and she brought me back to life. For good. And you left. I spent more than a hundred years looking for you, Doctor, and when I found you, you ran away again. All the way to the end of the universe. You said I was wrong. I’m a fact, a fixed point in time, and that’s not supposed to happen, so you ran away.” His voice had risen to a shout. He clamped his mouth shut, gripping the edges of the trunk. He hadn’t meant to get angry, but how could he not? How could he go back to that moment and not feel heartbroken all over again, much as he wanted to spare the Doctor?

The Doctor looked away. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.

“Yeah.” Jack couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. He forced his hands to relax. “We kind of already did this part, Doctor.”

“Still, I—I’m sorry. I thought— I just assumed—”

“What?”

“That you were already like this when I met you.”

“What? Immortal?” Jack looked incredulously at him. “In what universe would you _not_ have run from me if I’d been _like this_ when we first met?”

The Doctor flinched. “I don’t know. You’re right. I just— I’m sorry, Jack. For what it’s worth.”

“Yeah.” He gave a tired sigh and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I know you are.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Jack sat up straight again and squared his shoulders, giving himself a shake. “Anyway, that’s not what’s important.” He waved away the Doctor’s protest. “What’s important is that after you regenerated, you went back to London and you lost your hand in a sword fight with a Sycorax warlord. Your right,” he added when he saw the Doctor looking down at his two hands. “You grew another one.”

“I can see that,” the Doctor muttered, lifting his right hand, wiggling his fingers and grinning a little. “That’s handy.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “I found your severed hand and I kept it,” he continued, but the Doctor interrupted him, arching an eyebrow at him.

“You kept my severed hand?” he repeated. “What, in a jar on your desk? What sort of thing is that to do?”

Martha couldn’t contain a sudden burst of laughter. She covered her mouth with her hands. “Sorry,” she said, when Jack looked at her sharply. “It’s just, well, you did.”

“I was using it to find you!” Jack told the Doctor defensively.

“I see.” He nodded. He caught Martha’s eye and smirked. “And that’ll be important?”

“Very,” Martha replied. “But we’re not there yet.”

“Right,” he agreed, and looked back and forth between them. “What’s this about the end of the universe?”

***

They were leaving things out, of course; skipping over details, leaving whole months unaccounted for, whole adventures. And then there was all the time when the Doctor had been without either one of them, and so he still didn’t know exactly how he had lost Rose. Well; Jack knew enough of what had happened at Canary Wharf to extrapolate, but he was missing the details: the looks, the touches, the arguments, the hands that reached for each other even as the space between them grew ever wider and impassable—

_She falls. He screams her name but he can’t let go, can’t even reach for her. He can only watch The wind whips at him and her eyes meet his before—_

He gasped. A stab of pain shot through his mind and he shut his eyes tight, clutching at his head until it dissipated. When he opened them, Jack and Martha had both fallen silent and were watching him warily. For a moment the only sound was him catching his breath.

Finally Martha asked cautiously, “Are you all right?”

He nodded, sitting up straighter. “Fine, yeah. Fine.” He forced a smile. “Always.” He tugged at his collar; the alcove was beginning to feel rather close. Martha reached for him again as if to feel his forehead. He shrugged her off.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Really, I am. Go on, please. I need to hear the rest.”

The two of them exchanged a look that made the Doctor want grit his teeth, but after a moment they seemed to reach an unspoken agreement and Martha nodded. “All right,” she said. “Where was I?”

“The chameleon arch,” the Doctor said. “I used the chameleon arch.”

A shadow crossed her face. “Right,” she said. She let out a deep breath. “That part’s not really important, actually. It’s just that it came around again, later on. The fob watch.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to protest—it _was_ important, all of it was. How was he to puzzle out the reason that he had lost his memories of his last two regenerations if he didn’t have all the pieces? The chameleon arch certainly seemed promising—but Jack shot him a sharp look and he closed it again without saying anything, surprising them both. He looked at Martha expectantly, and she skipped ahead.

One thing was clear: Jack and Martha were his friends, and he had hurt them. Badly. For all the time that had passed since the Game Station, it wasn’t hard to see that Jack’s wounds were still raw, however much he might think he had healed. Martha was something else: a little harder, a little more closed off. She wouldn’t say what he had done, but he could see it in her eyes as she recounted the year she walked the Earth to save it from the Master. To save him. Heartbreak. He always broke their hearts. He was still that man.

And yet they both seemed keen to protect him from that knowledge. He had landed in Cardiff and they had come to help him. He had left so many of his companions behind. Left them, lost them. It was preemptive action: break his own hearts before someone else could. But listening to Martha and Jack, he could see that they hurt just as much as he did. He left, and they were left behind, picking up the pieces.

It wasn’t his story they were telling him; it was theirs. Jack’s story. Martha’s story. Rose’s story, Sarah Jane’s and Donna Noble’s, and there were others, so many others. His story was all of theirs.

It took them the better part of the afternoon to finish the tale, trading the narrative back and forth by the end, picking up details for one another, making observations the other had missed, filling in their own separate experiences from the night the earth was stolen.

The Doctor was silent for a long time when they had finished, trying to process it all, but he kept coming back to one detail. _Rose._ Rose had come back for him.

And she had left with him. Gone where he couldn’t follow. Jack and Martha didn’t say—maybe they didn’t know—but he was quite certain of it.

He shook his head, trying to focus. He was getting warmer, could feel his heartbeats growing more frenetic, but he didn’t want to call attention to that fact by taking off the leather jacket. He had all the pieces in his hands now; it was just a matter of fitting them together. He wasn’t about to be distracted by another trip to the medical bay.

He tugged at his collar again. “Instantaneous biological metacrisis, you said?”

They both nodded, and he lapsed back into silence, thinking.

“And I was with Donna the last time you saw me?”

Martha nodded. “That was a few months ago, for us.”

“She was fine?”

“Better than fine, if you ask me,” said Jack. Martha nodded her agreement. “She was giving you a run for your money.”

“You didn’t try to contact her?”

They looked at each other. “We thought she was with you,” Martha said.

A human-Time Lord metacrisis. Impossible. And he had left her behind. Why?

_She stands in front of the console, bathed in blue-gold light. “Binary—binary—binary—binary—binary—binary—I’m fine.”_

Another stab of pain made him gasp for breath. Again, he shook Martha off. “Not yet,” he said. “Just—not yet.” He steadied himself against the arm of the sofa, his fingers digging into the velvet. Martha sank back against the cushions, but she remained tense, watching him warily.

“It hasn’t been that long for me,” he said at last. “A day. Two, at the most. I’m still regenerating”

“But I thought you siphoned off the energy into your hand,” Jack said.

“Wellll. I’d still have some residual energy, but I’d expect to have reabsorbed it by now.” Instead, it was building, almost like it was waiting for something.

“Tell you what,” the Doctor continued, getting to his feet and searching for an opening between the racks of clothing that enclosed them. “I’d like to talk with Donna Noble.”

He pushed aside a chain mail shirt hanging on one of the racks and shoved his way back toward the door, trusting the other two to follow him.

“But what about the other Doctor?” Martha asked when they reached the console room. “Won’t he have a better idea of what’s going on?”

“Possibly.” The Doctor padded across to the controls and pulled the monitor around to face him. He pulled up the flight records and scrolled back through them, pausing when he came to the set of coordinates that weren’t of this universe. It was exactly what he had expected to see, but he was unprepared for the depth of the loss he felt. For a moment he just gazed at them. He swallowed hard. “They’re gone,” he said.

“Where?” Martha asked.

He ignored her. A quick glance at Jack told him he had pieced it together on his own.

“Now then!” He hit a button with a flourish. “The last place I went was Chiswick. Before that it was Cardiff, and Ealing before that.” He glanced at Jack. “You were right about my timeline.”

Jack smiled back. “Ex-Time Agent. Good instincts about these things.”

“We’ll want Chiswick,” Martha said. “That’s where Donna’s from.”

“All right then.” He released the hand brake and began the dematerialization sequence. “Off we go.” The TARDIS began to quake.

***

Much to the Doctor’s relief, Jack and Martha both stepped up to the console to help him fly, and neither needed his prompting to work the controls. He still had to dart around and do the complicated calibrations to keep them on course, but without them, he wasn’t sure he’d have managed it. Cardiff to London was a short trip, but he was rapidly losing his strength, and piloting the TARDIS solo could be a strain under any circumstances. They landed with a shudder and he stood still for a long moment, steadying himself against the console.

“Doctor?” Jack asked.

He gave himself a shake. “Right. What are we waiting for?” He pushed away from the console and started for the door, but he only made it a few steps before a wave of dizziness overtook him and he had to catch himself on the railing.

For a moment all three of them stood very still. He caught Martha and Jack looking at each other, arguing silently. Then Martha approached him cautiously and touched his arm.

“You should stay here,” she said. She searched his face, but didn’t make a move to touch him again. “You’re getting worse. Jack can go. He’ll find her.”

The Doctor shook his head. “I have to go,” he said, pushing away from the railing. He paused for a second to make sure his legs were steady under him before he started for the door. Jack blocked his way to the ramp. The Doctor came up short, his skin prickling at standing so close to him.

“Jack,” he sighed.

“You don’t have shoes on.”

He spluttered. “Oh, now really, this is—” He turned to look beseechingly at Martha, still standing where he had left her, but she only raised her eyebrows.

“You don’t,” she pointed out.

“So?”

“Doctor.” Jack laid a hand on his shoulder, ignoring his flinch, and caught and held his gaze. “You don’t even know what she looks like. Let me go. I’ll find her.”

“I—”

_They stand on the deck of a war-torn space station, lit only by the glow of the TARDIS. Jack stands so close he is all the Doctor can see, and he cups his face in both hands and kisses his mouth, and then he is gone._

Pain seared through him, white-hot and blinding. He groped for the railing as his legs gave out, but it was Jack who caught him. “I’ve got you,” he said, his arm coming around his waist to hold him upright.

The Doctor scrabbled to get his feet under him. “I’m fine.” The words slurred. His tongue felt thick.

_She backs away from him with tears in her eyes, shaking her head. “Don’t make me go back. Please.”_

He struggled for air, his fingers fisting in Jack’s shirt. Martha was at his other side, now, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Medical bay,” she said over his head. “Right now.”

He tried to protest, but all that came out was a moan. The room tipped on its side and he was aware of being carried, the light changing from the gold of the console room to the bright white of the medical bay. Jack laid him on the table and started to move away, but the Doctor caught his wrist, clutching at him when another wave of pain made him cry out.

“Okay,” Jack said, patting his hand. “I’m right here.”

“Doctor?” Martha bent over him, shining a light in his eyes. He felt something cool on his forehead. “Can you hear me?”

_They clutch each others’ hands and as the Master turns away he bends close to her ear and whispers, making tears run down her cheeks._

He convulsed, his fingers digging into Jack’s wrist. Stars exploded behind his eyes. He sobbed with the pain of it, only dimly aware of the urgent voices above him.

“Can’t you give him something?

“Working on it. Try to keep him still.”

The sound of his own screams. Jack’s weight across his chest, holding him down. His voice in his ear, low and soothing. A sharp pain in his neck.

There was a moment of phenomenal agony. Just for an instant, he could see everything with a clarity that took his breath away. Then it all began to fade.

Jack and Martha’s worried faces blurred above him. He moved his arm, tugging on Jack’s hand until he bent close. He had seen it, seen what he needed, but now all he had was a piece. “Donna,” he said. “Find her.”

Jack glanced up once and then focused on him again. He smoothed the Doctor’s hair with his free hand. “I will.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

He clutched at scraps of memory. “I took her home,” he mumbled. Darkness rolled up over him.

“I’ll find her.” Jack smoothed his hair again and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Now rest.”

Consciousness slipped away.


	4. Starting Over

The first time Donna heard someone call her name she barely registered it. It was a Friday afternoon and she was walking through Chiswick House Park on her way home from work, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine on her shoulders and feeling, all in all, more normal than she had in weeks. Her boss and coworkers had finally stopped behaving around her as if they were afraid she might collapse in seizures at any second, and just this morning Ms. Crowell had offered her a full-time, salaried position and title of Personal Assistant.

Donna grimaced to herself, kicking at the pavement. Ms. Crowell’s former PA was a friend of her mum’s who had decided she was ready to retire; Donna had only gotten the job as a favor to her, to fill in until they could make a permanent hire, though it was all down to her that she had impressed Ms. Crowell enough to get the job. She should have been happy, really, especially under the circumstances. Two years of intermittent employment could be explained away by the illness that had left gaping holes in her memory, but it didn’t exactly make her the most desirable job candidate, even if she had made a full recovery. Well, nearly; there had been a specialist, apparently; a doctor who had assured her mum and granddad that she would be fine, though large chunks of the last two years would always be missing from her memories—including, it seemed, the doctor himself.

They were keeping something from her, Donna knew. She had picked it up in Egypt, Mum said, but there were holes in Donna’s memory from before that, ever since the wedding and Lance’s death. She had a feeling they were trying to protect her from something, and after a while Donna had stopped pushing and just tried to get on with things, though if she was being honest the hardest thing wasn’t that her mum was keeping secrets from her; it was Granddad. He knew whatever it was Mum knew, and while it had made her suddenly and strangely protective of Donna, it had made him more distant. Not that they weren’t still close, but they were no longer co-conspirators. When he thought she wasn’t looking, he looked at her like his heart might break; and when Donna went up the hill with him at night, he always stayed out after she went in, instead of joining her for a cuppa before bed as he used to do.

She shook her head, trying to dispel the melancholy that had descended over her. She was doing rather well, considering everything. P.A. She would have killed for that title a few years ago. So why did she feel so empty?

“Donna!” The voice finally broke through her reverie and she paused and turned, realizing that she had heard her name shouted several times. The park was crowded, but it would have been difficult to miss the tall man jogging toward her: He looked like he’d just stepped off a movie set, in an old fashioned military coat that flew out behind him, chiseled features, and too-perfect hair.

“Donna,” he said again when he reached her, his accent flattening her name, not unpleasantly. He didn’t seem winded but his voice sounded breathless just the same, with...relief? “I’ve been looking all over—” He broke off. For a moment he just stared at her. She stared back, not sure if she should stay and talk or turn and run away. Relief on his face turned to dismay. “Oh, no. Not you, too.”

Donna blinked. “Not me too what?” she asked. “And who the hell are you?”

Instead of answering, he grabbed hold of her wrist. “Oi!” Donna cried, trying unsuccessfully to free herself. He ignored her.

With his other hand he touched a tiny Bluetooth device in his ear and said, “Martha?...Yeah, I found her. There’s just one problem.” He looked at Donna, frustration evident on his face. “She has amnesia, too.”

Donna stopped struggling and stared. She felt the color drain from her face. Her own breath sounded loud in her ears. For a moment she thought she was going to faint. “What?” she whispered. “How do you know about that?”

But he was still talking on his headset. “No...I don’t know.” His expression shifted from frustration to worry. “How is he?” he asked. He listened for another moment, looking more and more worried. Finally he said, “No, we’re on our way. Just sit tight.” He touched the earpiece again. “I need you to come with me,” he said to Donna, and without waiting for her to answer he started walking, pulling her along.

“Hold on a minute.” Donna yanked her wrist from his hand and stopped walking. He took a few more steps before he spun to face her, his coat flaring out and a scowl on his face. He had the look of someone used to getting his way, but Donna wasn’t intimidated by his pretty face or by his coat. She put her hands on her hips and stared him down. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what’s going on. Who are you?”

The man took a deep breath and looked skyward for a moment, as if he were willing himself to patience. “Captain Jack Harkness,” he said, when he looked back at her. “And you’re Donna Noble.”

Donna’s heart began to pound. “I know you.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what happened to me?”

He shook his head. “No.” Belatedly, his expression turned sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”

Donna swallowed hard. “But—”

“Donna.” He closed the space between them and looked down at her. Donna could see a light of desperation in his eyes. “My friend is sick,” he said. “And I know you don’t remember him, but he’s your friend, too. He asked me to come find you.”

Donna’s mind raced. A part of her, a cynical, wounded part that had been hurt too many times, warned her to be careful; but something about Captain Jack Harkness tickled the back of her mind and moved her trust him. This was just the sort of thing she had been dreading. What had she done during those two years? Who had she met? Who had she grown so close to that he would ask for her when he was, if Jack’s face was any indication, gravely ill?

Jack’s hand closed around hers, more gently this time. “Will you come with me?” he asked.

Donna opened her mouth to answer and then closed it. She nodded and started walking, letting Jack guide them. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief and Donna felt rather than saw some of the tension drain from his shoulders. He squeezed her hand in thanks.

“How do I know him?” Donna asked after a moment, hurrying to keep up with his long strides.

“You met at your wedding,” he said. “Your fiancé was...” he trailed off, frowning. “It’s sort of a long story, actually,” he said instead, glancing at her as if he wasn’t sure he should go on. Before she could press him, he stopped walking and dropped her hand so he could reach in his pocket. “Here we are.”

Donna looked around, surprised. She had expected for him to take her to his car and then to the hospital; instead they were standing in front of an old-fashioned phone box in a secluded area of the park. Jack withdrew a key from his pocket and slipped it into the lock. She took a step back, suddenly suspicious.

“What’s going on?” she demanded. “Is this some sort of a joke? Because if it is—” She glanced over her shoulder.

“It’s not a joke, Donna.” Jack pushed the door open and caught hold of her elbow with an implacable grip, pushing her toward the entrance. As soon as she crossed the threshold, Donna’s jaw dropped. She felt the blood rushing in her ears and a sudden pounding in her head as she took in the enormous space. She tried to step back outside but Jack was behind her, propelling her forward. “It’s bigger on the inside,” he said. “We really don’t have time for this.” And he led her through the domed room with its deep, pulsing thrum, skirting the central column and then down the opposite ramp, through another doorway, across a hall and into a large, bright infirmary.

A woman leapt up from the stool she had been sitting on and hurried toward them, hesitating when she drew close, watching Donna warily. Martha, Jack had called her on the phone. Donna wondered if she knew her, too.

“How is he?” Jack asked.

Martha shook her head, grimacing. “No worse, but no better, either.” She glanced at Donna. “Is she—?”

Jack shook his head. “Nothing,” he said.

Martha sighed, looking helpless. “I don’t know what to do, Jack.” She looked over her shoulder, toward the bed at the far end of the room. “I can try to keep him comfortable, but...” she trailed off.

Jack squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll figure something out,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced.

Donna barely heard them. Her eyes were fixed on the far end of the room, where Martha had been sitting when they came in. A man lay in the bed beneath a silvery blanket, breathing raggedly. Several monitors blinked on the wall above him. He stirred and fretted in his sleep. Donna took a few steps toward him. There was something familiar about him. She frowned, trying to think past the pounding in her head, and had a sudden flash of memory, of him standing awkwardly in the lounge at her mother’s house and offering her his hand to shake.

“John Smith,” she said aloud, and then gave her head a shake. That wasn’t right. She took a few steps toward him.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

“We don’t know,” Martha said.

“We were sort of hoping you could help us with that,” Jack added.

“Me?” Donna turned back toward him. Everything felt slow and dreamlike. “What could I do? I’m just a secretary.”

Martha came to stand beside her. “You’re a lot more than that,” she said.

She shook her head, feeling strange. “He’s not even human. He’s probably got—two hearts, or something.”

“What did you say?”

Donna didn’t answer. She crossed the room in a daze and knelt beside him, clasping his arm through the fabric of the blanket. It felt smooth and cool against her palms. She _knew_ him. That tickle of recognition she had felt with Jack felt like a roar in her head when she looked at him, as if her whole being were responding to his presence. He stirred and fretted in his sleep.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Doctor,” Martha replied.

Another time she might have scoffed, but she only nodded, turned back toward him and repeated it, giving his arm a gentle squeeze.

He stirred again and turn his head toward her, his eyes fluttering open. She thought she saw a smile touch his lips. “Donna.” It was barely a whisper.

“Yeah.” She rubbed her hand up and down his arm, wishing desperately that she remembered him, that she could offer some greater comfort. “I’m here.”

He drew another breath, looking as though he were trying to say something else, but a shudder ran through him and he squeezed his eyes shut, moaning in pain. He relaxed slowly, trailing off into whimpers. Donna reached up and smoothed his hair.

“Shh,” she soothed. “It’s all right, sweetheart.”

The moment she touched him, he began to glow.

Donna jerked her hand back. The glow intensified, surrounding the two of them and blocking out the rest of the room. He drew a deep, gasping breath, his eyes opening wide. For a moment he just lay there, staring at the ceiling. Then he pushed himself up onto one elbow and turned to her. “Donna.” He spoke in a clear, bright tenor that sounded deeply, painfully familiar to her. He smiled. She gaped at him.

“Doctor?” she stammered.

He sat up, swinging his feet around, and took her hands in his. The glow spread to her, creeping up her arms to her shoulders and enveloping her. Donna felt a pleasant buzz deep in her throat, spreading out along her spine and lodging in her brain. She looked down at herself. _She_ was glowing, now. “What’s happening?” she whispered.

He smiled again, wider this time, and let out a relieved, delighted laugh. “You’re regenerating.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.” He squeezed her hands. “But you will.”

The light surrounding them grew brighter, and with it the resonance in Donna’s bones, deepening to the point of pain. In another moment it overwhelmed everything.


	5. Starting Over

  
The light flowed out of the Doctor and into Donna, through her, tingling along each nerve and synapse, flinging open doors and passageways and leaving the pieces of the last two years scattered along the corridors of her mind, still muddled but finally all the pieces were there again: Lance and Egypt and Adipose, Pompeii and 1926 and extonic sunlight, Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, Sontarans and Unit and Torchwood, Jenny—and through it all, the Doctor. Always the Doctor, taking her hand, clasping her in a hug, grinning that manic grin of his and telling her she’s brilliant. It coursed through her and then suddenly, it was gone. Donna’s body went slack with the abruptness of its loss.

Hands caught her as she fell forward and she came to rest against a bony shoulder clad in light blue. “I’ve got you,” a voice said above her. The Doctor’s voice. Without realizing it she had caught hold of his upper arms and was clutching at him for dear life. “It’s all right.” He stroked her hair. She rested there, trembling and listening to the steady double beat of his hearts.

After a few moments he drew back, holding her by the shoulders and slouching a little so he could look at her face. He had slid from the bed down to the floor, where they sat facing each other. She scrunched her eyes shut and then blinked a few times.

“Doctor?” she asked.

His face broke into a grin. “Yep,” he responded.

Donna took a closer look at him, pale and hollow-eyed. “You look awful,” she told him. He laughed, his eyes crinkling.

“Yep,” he agreed, squeezing her shoulders. His grin widened. “You look brilliant.”

“I—” Donna’s hands flew to her face in sudden horror. _You’re regenerating,_ the Doctor had told her. She looked down at herself, then grabbed a piece of her hair and pulled in front of her face to look at it. She dropped it, sagging with relief. “I look the same.”

“’Course you do, yeah,” the Doctor agreed. “Partial regeneration, that’s all. Only fixed what needed fixing. Brilliant.” He grinned again.

She smiled weakly back. She still felt shaky, as if her thoughts might lose their footing and start tripping over each other any minute. She raised a hand to her forehead, feeling panicky at the thought of losing it all again.

“Donna?” The Doctor’s voice went sharp with sudden worry. She felt his hand on her wrist. “What is it?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I just—” She lowered her hand so she could look at him through the tears that were gathering behind her eyes. “Am I going to be all right?”

He sat back on his heels. “Can I see?” he asked, raising his hands and gesturing.

Donna couldn’t help it; she shrank from him, remembering what he had done—what he had had to do—the last time he had been in her head. Hurt flashed in his eyes at her flinch, but he clamped down on it quickly and waited, patient. Finally Donna nodded, and he leaned forward and set his fingers on her temples, gently touching her mind with his. Donna closed her eyes and held her breath.

In another moment, he was crushing her in another hug. Donna opened her eyes, surprised. Her arms came tentatively around him. “Am I all right, then?” she asked.

“Oh yes!” he cried. He let go of her long enough to pull her to her feet before he threw his arms around her again. “Better than all right. Brilliant. _Molto bene!_ ” He let out a delighted laugh, pulling back again to grin at her.

Donna smiled back, and then she slapped him.

“Oi!” he yelped, cupping his cheek.

“That’s for leaving,” she said, shaking a finger in his face.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, still rubbing his cheek. “I had to,” he said. “The metacrisis would have killed you if you had remembered.”

“You might’ve stayed around for a few days. Instead, it almost killed you.”

He didn’t have an answer to that. He looked away, his hand moving to the back of his neck.

After a moment Donna relented and pulled him into another hug. “It’s good to be back,” she said.

She could feel the tension drain out of him. “It’s good to have you back,” he replied, and wrapped his arms around her. He hung on like a drowning man, as if this was the only way he could be sure she was really here, really all right. Donna could feel him trembling against her. “I’m sorry,” he said into her hair. “I’m so sorry, Donna. There was nothing else—”

“Shh. I know.” It would have to be enough for now, Donna thought, rubbing his back. There would be time for the rest.

“Um.” Behind them, Jack cleared his throat, startling them both. They separated and turned toward him and Martha. “Sorry,” Jack continued. “But what exactly is going on?”

***

There was a long silence. The Doctor looked at each of them in turn and then away without saying anything. He sat back down on the edge of the bed and scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair.

After another moment Martha crossed the room and checked the readings on the monitors above him, still recording his vital signs. “That’s all back to normal,” she said, relief in her voice. She sat back down on the stool near the bed. “What happened? That light, it looked like—”

“Regeneration,” the Doctor finished for her, nodding.

“And youhave your memories back?”

Donna looked at the Doctor in surprise. “You lost your memories?” she asked.

He nodded and waved his arms about in a vague explanatory gesture. “Long story. Neurons got scrambled with all that excess energy about.” He tapped his temple and grinned up at her. “All back now.”

“And you?” Martha asked Donna.

She nodded, sitting down beside the Doctor on the bed. Jack stayed standing, arms crossed and leaning one hip against the counter. “So what happened?”

They all looked at the Doctor.

He looked at the three of them as if he would rather do anything than explain what had just happened in terms they could understand. He scrubbed his hand over his face again and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “The metacrisis worked three ways,” he began. “There was Donna, and the other Doctor—and there was also me.” He looked at Donna. “I thought I was feeling the TARDIS dying, but I was really feeling the metacrisis. If I had realized...” He trailed off.

“The metacrisis was unstable,” he continued. “The human brain isn’t meant to handle a Time Lord consciousness. It was killing her, so I had to—wipe her mind.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “There was nothing else I could do. After we took you back to Cardiff and took Rose—home—you just started unraveling. It was happening so fast—” His voice trembled and he cut off before it broke. “It was all I could do,” he repeated.

Donna shuddered, remembering, and then she thought about what it would have been like if it had been the Doctor who had started to unravel, and what she would have done. She reached over and squeezed his arm. “I know,” she said. He looked at her and gave her a fragile little smile.

“What I didn’t realize,” the Doctor said when his voice was steady again, addressing her, “was that the residual energy from my regeneration—what I didn’t siphon off into my hand and which I should have reabsorbed—was actually _building_. You and the other Doctor were connected to each other, and I was connected to you both. When Davros shot you and woke the Time Lord part of you, it woke something in me, too. You couldn’t produce your own regenerative energy, but I could produce it for you.” He grinned suddenly, still overwhelmed at having her back.

“So you—what? Recharged me? Like a battery?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” he agreed.

“Will it happen again?”

He blinked, his grin fading. “What? No, I don’t think so. Why would it?”

“It’s like you said: I can’t produce regenerative energy. So if I’m like a battery that needs charging up, will you need to do it again?”

“Oh.” He shook his head. “No. What I did, I just had to lock every thing away. It was all tangled up together, Time Lord and human. When you regenerated, they split apart. Much more precise. The Time Lord part of you is safe now.”

“So I’m all right?” Donna asked, for the second time.

The Doctor grinned again, exuberant. “Right as rain.”

“So let me get this straight,” Jack said suddenly. They all turned to him. “You dropped us off in Cardiff”—he gestured toward Martha—“and then you took Rose and the other Doctor _home_ ”—he looked sharply at the Doctor—“and after that, you wiped Donna’s mind and dropped _her_ at home. Does that sound about right?”

The Doctor looked uncomfortable. He tugged at his ear, avoiding Jack’s gaze. “Um, yeah. I suppose. About right.”

Martha shot Jack a warning look, but if he noticed, he ignored her.

“You took Rose home.” His tone was flat, but Donna could hear the tension beneath it.

The Doctor nodded, still avoiding Jack’s gaze. “I did, yeah.”

“To London.”

The Doctor looked at his hands and didn’t respond.

“I want to hear you say it.”

He looked up, suddenly all steel. “Say what?”

“You took her back to the parallel world. Say it.”

“Jack—”

“Say it!”

There was a long, tense pause, and then the Doctor said, very quietly. “I took her back to the parallel world.”

Jack barked a short, bitter laugh. “Of course you did. Is that what she wanted? Did you even bother to ask?” He didn’t give the Doctor time to respond. “Why would you? You know best. Rose builds a dimension cannon to get back to you and you just dump her back on the parallel world like it doesn’t mean a thing. Like _she_ doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Jack,” Martha said.

“Did you dump him there, too? Hm? Two birds with one stone?”

“What else would you have me do?” the Doctor retorted. He surged to his feet, staring Jack down. “There couldn’t very well be two of me running around.”

“No,” Jack agreed. “One of you is more than enough.” At that, the Doctor seemed to deflate a little. Jack, if he noticed, gave no sign. “You’re an idiot,” he continued. “And an asshole. She came back for _you_.”

“He _is_ me. Don’t you see, Jack? He’s me, and he can give her everything I can’t. A normal life.”

“She doesn’t want a normal life.”

“Then she doesn’t have to have one. But now she _can_. She doesn’t have to choose.”

“Because you chose for her.”

“There was nothing else I could do!”

 _“You could have let me say goodbye!”_ Jack’s hand came down hard on the countertop. He glared at the Doctor with tears standing out in his eyes. He drew a ragged breath. “You aren’t the only one who loves her, you know.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to respond and then closed it without saying anything. He held his body rigid to keep from trembling. Jack wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and turned away, taking a few steps back toward the center of the room.

“All right,” Martha said into the silence. “That’s enough.” She turned to the Doctor. “You need to rest.”

“I’m fine.”

Martha exchanged an exasperated look with Donna. “Less than an hour ago you had a fever of fifty-three, and you just gave all your healing energy to Donna. Even you can’t recover from something like that instantaneously.”

He didn’t answer. He hadn’t taken his eyes from Jack, who still stood with his back to them.

“I think we could all do with some rest,” Donna said, catching Martha’s eye and nodding toward Jack and the doorway. Martha shot the Doctor one more worried look, then nodded.

“Fine,” she said, addressing Donna. “We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us.”

“She’s right,” Donna said when they had gone. The Doctor looked at her and blinked as if he were coming out of a trance, his eyes slowly coming into focus. The last time she had seen him looking so fragile and exhausted had been after he got off that bus on Midnight. She nodded toward the bed. “Go on. Lie down.”

“I don’t need—”

She gave him a light shove. He staggered and sat down heavily, looking up with her with an indignant scowl.

“If you’re half as exhausted as you look, you need sleep,” Donna told him firmly.

“I slept all day!”

“Delirious with fever. You need _rest_ , Doctor. _Rest,_ ” she repeated.

He glared at her for another moment and then, all at once, he seemed to deflate. His shoulders fell, and he bowed his head, hiding his face in his hands.

“He’s right,” he said, his voice muffled.

Donna sighed. “Only half,” she said.

He looked up at her.

“You’re an idiot sometimes, but you’re not an arsehole.”

That garnered a hint of a smile. Donna pulled the cover back and patted his leg. “In,” she ordered, and after a moment, he obeyed, settling on his side with his hands tucked under the pillow. Donna covered him up and took a seat on the stool. His eyes were wide open, staring past her with a bleak expression. She ran her fingers through his hair.

“I didn’t think,” he sighed. “I just knew that if I didn’t do it quickly, I wouldn’t have been able to walk away.”

“I know,” Donna responded, remembering that day on the beach—only yesterday, for him.

They were silent for a few moments. Then, very quietly, the Doctor asked, “Did I do the right thing, Donna?”

Donna paused for a moment, thinking. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I don’t think you did the _wrong_ thing.” She resumed stroking his hair. “But you can’t undo it. All you can do now is go forward.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

They were silent for a few minutes. Donna found the switch and dimmed the lights, but as the minutes ticked by he didn’t show any signs of relaxing. His eyes stayed open, staring off into the middle distance while Donna smoothed his hair. Eventually she asked, “Do you want me to get Martha? She could give you something to help you sleep.”

“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “I don’t want— Just—talk to me?”

Donna looked at him quizzically. “All right,” she agreed. “What about?”

“I don’t know, just—anything. Tell me about your granddad. Tell me about—” his voice caught. He looked up at her, looking panicky. “Just stay. Please.”

Oh, Donna thought, understanding. “I’m not going anywhere,” she told him. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“I know. I just—”

“Shh. Close your eyes. I’ll tell you about the first time Granddad thought he saw an alien.”

A smile touched his lips. He closed his eyes, and Donna told him that story, and about how badly Granddad had wanted to become an astronaut, and how many nights Donna had sat up with him to look at the stars, until the tension drained out of him and his breathing deepened and evened out, and Donna fell silent, finally becoming conscious of another presence in the room. Jack was standing by the door, his hands in his pockets, looking a little sheepish.

“Hey,” he said, keeping his voice low. He crossed the room and joined her by the bed, watching the Doctor sleep.

“Mind if I sit with him for a little while?”

Donna hesitated.

“I won’t smother him with a pillow or anything,” he assured her.

“Tempting as it is,” Donna said with a hint of a grin.

He smiled. “Sometimes,” he agreed.

Donna got up. “Are you all right?” she asked before she left.

Jack shrugged. “Are you?”

After she had gone, he stood by the bedside for several moments, unmoving. All day, he had had to keep his distance from him when all he wanted to come close, to offer the comfort of a hug or an arm around his shoulders, and then the knowledge of what the Doctor had done had kept him away like the opposite end of a magnet. He sighed. “You bastard.”

He unlaced his boots and climbed carefully over the Doctor’s sleeping form to lie down beside him, fitting his body against the Doctor’s. He breathed in the scent of his hair and felt the rhythm of his hearts and told himself he would just lie there for a little while. It wasn’t long before he was asleep, too.


	6. Starting Over

Donna knocked lightly on the doorframe before she came into the kitchen. Martha looked up, shaking herself out of her thoughts. “Everything all right?” she asked.

Donna nodded, crossing the room to put the kettle on. “Yeah,” she said. “He’s asleep.”

“Good.” Martha sat back in her chair, stretching. “I thought he was going to need a sedative if he was going to get any rest.”

Donna chuckled in agreement. “Me, too.”

Martha watched her in silence for a moment, then asked, “How are you?”

“Me? Fine.” The kettle clicked and she poured the hot water over her tea bag. She looked up to see Martha watching her skeptically. “Really,” Donna assured her, walking around the counter to sit at the table. “Still a bit jumbled, but everything’s there.”

“Are you still…?”

“What? Part Time Lord?”

Martha nodded. Donna sighed and shook her head.

“No. Not really. I’ve still got a little, but most of it’s gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Martha said after a moment.

Donna shrugged. “It’s all right. I think I’d rather not be, actually. Part Time Lord.”

“Why?”

Donna gave her a weak smile and asked, “Did he ever tell you how he sees the universe?” Martha shook her head. “He told me once he could see everything that was, everything that will be, what could be and what must not. I saw that for a little while. It was…terrifying.” She was staring past Martha, her eyes distant. “He’ll say the human brain isn’t meant to have all that knowledge, but that’s not it. It’s that way of seeing. All those possibilities. It’s enough to drive you mad.” She shuddered a little.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Donna staring off into the distance, her eyes haunted, and Martha watching her. Eventually Martha said, “You seemed so happy.”

“Oh, I was,” Donna replied, focusing on her again. “There was something so amazing about it, too; having all that in my head. Beautiful and terrible all at once.”

Martha reached across the table and clasped her hand. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said.

Donna squeezed hers in return. “Me, too,” she said fervently. “I knew there was more to life than being a personal assistant.”

Martha laughed. “Much more,” she agreed. She hesitated. “Are you going to stay with him?”

“Are you kidding? Wild horses couldn’t stop me. Only, don’t tell him that.” She winked. “I want him to work a little.”

Martha laughed again. “You’re secret’s safe with me.” After a moment she added, “I’m glad. He listens to you.”

Donna snorted. “Only when he wants to.”

“No, I mean it. He’s changed since I was with him. He’s…better. Not so broken. You’re good for him.”

Donna looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then she said, “He listens to you, too, you know.”

“Not like you.”

“Different, maybe. But…you know, I met him before.”

Martha raised her eyebrows, surprised. “You did? When?”

“Before you. Right after Rose. I mean, _right_ after. He had just managed to find a hole between the universes big enough to project an image of himself through so he could say goodbye, and then I appeared on the TARDIS and—well, it’s a long story, but like you said, he was broken.” She shook her head, remembering. It had taken her a long time to get him to tell her that, but it explained so much. “There was so much darkness in him. It was like he never thought he’d be happy again. I think a part of him was ready to give up trying. You helped him see that he didn’t have to. And you helped him see himself better, too. You were good for him, too. Still are.”

Martha looked away from her, suddenly embarrassed. Had she really done all that? She remembered how he had been when they met, by turns hot and cold, drawing her in and pushing her away until she decided to leave. But he _had_ been different, that last day on the TARDIS: still broken, still damaged, but a little less closed off. Ready to let her leave on her own instead of pushing her away.

“Oh, come on, stop being modest,” Donna teased.

Martha glanced up. “You know what?” she said, grinning a little. “I really am good.”

Donna smiled back. “I’d say we both are. Who knows where he’d be without us? Now,” she continued. “On to more important things.” She reached for Martha’s hand and tilted it so her ring caught the light. “When’s the big day?”

***

The Doctor stirred, pulling Jack abruptly into wakefulness in the dim light of the medical bay. He looked at his watch. Barely an hour had passed. The Doctor still breathed slowly and deeply beside him, fast asleep. Jack let out a breath, relaxing. He closed his eyes, drifting again.

A few minutes later the Doctor moved again, his body tensing, and whimpered softly. Jack started awake again. “Doctor?” he asked. He didn’t respond. Alarmed, Jack pushed himself up on his elbow and leaned over him, pressing his other hand to the Doctor’s forehead. His skin felt cool. His brows were drawn down in a slight frown and his eyes moved rapidly behind the lids. He whimpered again.

_Nightmare,_ he thought, sinking back down. _Of course._ Something else they shared, the two of them. Of course the Doctor hadn’t wanted to sleep; Jack so rarely did, even with Ianto lying beside him. Afraid of monsters in the dark.

He put his arm around the Doctor, holding him. “Shh,” he whispered. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.” He kept his voice low, trying to soothe without waking him. The Doctor moaned and shuddered in his sleep. Jack held him tighter. “Shh. You’re all right.”

The Doctor shuddered again, more violently this time. He gasped, jerking out of Jack’s arms and half-sitting up. For a moment he stayed there, wide-eyed and breathing hard. “Jack?”

Jack sat up beside him and placed his hands on the Doctor’s shoulders. “Yeah. I’m right here.”

The Doctor’s breathing was ragged and uneven. He shook his head. “I was dreaming—”

“Shh. I know.”

“Donna. Is she—?” He looked around at Jack, desperation in his eyes.

“She’s fine.”

“And Martha?”

“They’re both fine. They’re in the other room.”

The Doctor let out a breath. Jack rubbed his hands up and down his arms. “Lie down,” he said, applying a little more pressure. After another moment he let Jack press him back down onto the pillow.

“I can’t—” His voice broke.

“Shh.” Jack lay down beside him and held him again, rubbing one hand up and down his arm.

“Jack, I can’t—” He broke off and drew a thick, ragged breath. “I can’t lose her again, Jack. I can’t.” Jack could feel him trembling.

“It’s all right,” Jack said. “You’re not going to.”

“Yes, I am.” He turned over so he was facing Jack. His eyes were bright with tears. “One day. She’ll leave, or…” He trailed off, unable to say it.

Jack pulled him close and wrapped his arms around him. “I know,” he sighed. “But not today.” He pulled back and looked down at him, cupping the Doctor’s cheek in his hand. “She’s here now. We all are. You’re not alone, Doctor.”

The Doctor’s face crumpled. He let his head fall forward against Jack’s shoulder. Jack wrapped his arms around him and pulled him closer. The Doctor’s arms came around him. He shuddered and sobbed, clinging to him.

“I’m scared.” The Doctor’s voice was muffled against Jack’s shirt.

“I know,” Jack said, rubbing circles on his back. “It’s all right.”

He sobbed again, his fingers digging into Jack’s shoulders. Jack held him until his exhaustion kicked in again and he slowly began to subside. His hands relaxed, his breathing deepened and evened out, and eventually he lay quiet in Jack’s arms. Jack shifted him gently so he could lie more comfortably and pressed a kiss into his hair. He rested his chin on the Doctor’s head. “You’re never alone,” he whispered.

***

When the Doctor stirred against him a second time, it was with the sleepy languor of slow waking. He sighed and stretched and settled back down, his cool hand closing over Jack’s and lacing their fingers together. “Mmm,” he said drowsily. Jack heard him smile, a little bemused. “This is nice.”

“Mmm,” Jack agreed. He had dozed again, still pressed close to the Doctor, and he inhaled the scent of him, letting himself wake up slowly. The light in the medical bay was still dim. He smoothed the Doctor’s hair back from his forehead, making it stick up even more wildly and tickle his chin. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“All right. Better.” The Doctor shifted in Jack’s arms and rolled onto his back, gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Good, yeah.” He gave Jack a searching look. “How are you?”

Jack opened his mouth and then closed it. He propped himself up on one elbow, fidgeting and avoiding the Doctor’s gaze. Simple question; no simple answer. “I’m fine,” he said, knowing he wasn’t being convincing at all.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Doctor raise his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“No.” The word was out of his mouth before Jack could stop it. He sighed.

“I do remember what happened today, Jack,” the Doctor said. “I know you had to revisit some—difficult—memories…” He trailed off.

Jack looked at him and remembered how the Doctor had shrunk from him in the wardrobe; how he had felt, tense and trembling with pain in Jack’s arms when he collapsed in the console room; and again when Jack carried him from the examining table to the bed in the medical bay, sedated and limp and too hot; and crying himself to sleep beside him just a few hours ago. He felt all at once angry and frightened and fiercely protective. There were so many things he wanted to say.

But when he spoke, what he blurted out was, “Do I really hurt you?”

The Doctor’s gaze turned sharp and then slid away from him, toward the ceiling. “No,” he said quickly. “’Course not.”

“Doctor.”

He looked at Jack again and sighed, his expression sad. “You’re like looking straight into the sun, Jack,” he said. “In my head. All the time.”

Jack grimaced and shifted his gaze away, back at his hands. “That’s what you meant by ‘bright.’”

“Yes.”

“You ran because it hurts. To be near me.”

“Yes.” A hand came up, cool against his cheek. Jack looked at him again. “But only at first. You just take some getting used to, is all, Jack. I wasn’t expecting—before. I was confused. And afraid.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do.” He looked right at Jack, meeting his eyes squarely. “Not just for today, for the last time. I called you ‘wrong.’ I’m sorry. _I_ was wrong.”

Jack blinked, surprised.

“I was afraid, even then,” the Doctor went on. “Of you. What you are. What that means.”

“Still?” Jack asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.

The Doctor shook his head, avoiding his gaze again. “No.” He tugged at his ear. “If you must know, Jack, it’s—” he broke off. “Knowing you’re here, constant, it’s—a comfort, really.”

Jack stared at him. “I—really?”

Plainly embarrassed, the Doctor avoided his gaze and tugged at his ear again.

Jack laughed suddenly, relief and affection mingling. The Doctor scowled at him, indignant, but Jack cut off anything that he had been about to say with a kiss. “I’d rather be that,” he told him, and kissed him again. “I’ll always be that, Doctor.”

The Doctor stared at him, mouth open. He began to say something, but instead, he reached up and pulled Jack close again, kissing him. “Thank you.”

Jack grinned and winked. “The pleasure’s always mine, you know.”

“ _Jack._ ” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Is that _all_ you ever think about?” Jack laughed and rolled onto his back beside him. They lay there in silence for a few minutes. Jack’s mind wandered back to the events of the day and he grew serious again.

“What is it?” the Doctor asked, noticing.

Jack realized he was frowning. He smoothed out his features and shook his head. “Nothing,” he lied.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

“Really,” Jack said. He didn’t want to ruin this, whatever peace they had just reached, with more questions. There would be time for that later, he thought. Plenty of time.

“Jack,” the Doctor prompted. Jack sighed.

“You remembered Rose,” he said at last, feeling like a child complaining that he had gotten the smaller piece of cake.

But the Doctor nodded, serious as well, not looking at all as if he thought Jack was being childish. “I know.”

Jack hesitated. “Why?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Not for certain, anyway.” He pushed himself further up against the pillows so he was sitting and drew his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “When I regenerated on the Game Station,” he said, “I had just taken all the power of the Vortex out of Rose. But I think, when I took the Vortex out of her, I got some of _her_ , as well.” He glanced at Jack and then away. “She’s a part of me, now, or part of this regeneration, anyway.”

“Which is why you remembered her,” Jack said.

The Doctor nodded. “What I remembered, it wasn’t things we did together, or places we went, it was more like an idea. The idea of Rose, the—” He gestured, searching for the word. “The _Rose-ness_ of Rose. Loving her, her loving me. The way she makes you feel when she smiles.” He paused, then said, “I’m sorry.”

For a moment, Jack didn’t respond. It occurred to him to feel jealous, but only for a moment. He pushed himself up so he was sitting beside the Doctor. “Don’t be,” he said, and cupped the Doctor’s face in his hands and kissed him. He pulled away and started to unbutton the Doctor’s shirt. The Doctor caught his wrists.

“Jack, what are you—”

Jack cut him off with another kiss. “What you think?” He freed one hand and slid it up the Doctor’s thigh, reaching between his legs and making him gasp. “This way I get to make love to you both,” he said, pressing his lips against the Doctor’s throat.

When Jack’s hands went back to his shirt, the Doctor didn’t try to stop him.


	7. Epilogue: Going Forward

“Right, then!” the Doctor said, stepping into the console room. Martha and Donna were seated in the captain’s chair. Jack leaned against one of the railings near them, ankles crossed. The Doctor bounded up to the controls and looked at each of them in turn, rubbing his hands together. “What do you say? Scuba diving on Aoxax X?” He started flipping switches on the console. “Or, I know! The singing gardens of Yllu! I haven’t been there in ages.” He paused and looked back up at them. “How about it?”

Martha and Jack glanced at each other. “We really should get back,” Martha said.

“Oh, come on,” the Doctor wheedled. “I _do_ have a time machine, you know. You won’t even be missed.”

Jack snorted. “With your driving?”

“Oi!” The Doctor held on to his indignation for a moment, but then he grinned. “One trip,” he said. “To say thank you. You saved my life, after all.”

“And mine,” Donna piped up.

“And hers,” the Doctor echoed, jerking his thumb at her over his shoulder. “Just one trip,” he repeated.

“That’s what you always say,” Martha said, teasing. She hopped down from the captain’s chair and came to stand beside him, linking arms with him and looking up at him through her lashes. “And then one thing leads to another…”

He grinned. “It does, doesn’t it?”

Jack chuckled. “Little bit.”

The Doctor sighed. “Well, it was worth a try, anyway.” He reset the coordinates and reached for the hand brake, resting his hand on it. “Home?” he asked.

“Home,” Jack agreed.

“Home,” Martha said, a little more fervently than she’d expected.

The Doctor glanced behind him at Donna, who smiled and didn’t say anything.

The TARDIS landed on the Plass with a jolt, throwing everyone against the nearest railing. The four of them stepped outside into the morning sunshine. The Doctor walked a short distance with Jack, leaving Martha and Donna to say their farewells by the TARDIS.

“Jack,” the Doctor began, but Jack cut him off.

“Don’t,” he said.

The Doctor blinked. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t apologize.”

The Doctor closed his mouth. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground, scuffing the toe of his trainer on the pavement.

“It’s like we got stuck, you and I,” Jack said. “I was so angry with you for so long, for leaving, and then for not being able to fix me. For trying to running away from me a second time.” He shook his head. “Maybe a part of me still is.” The Doctor opened his mouth to speak and Jack held up a hand to stop him. “But I don’t want you apologizing every time I see you. I don’t want that to be the only thing that defines who we are to each other. It’s time to go forward.”

The Doctor nodded. “All the same,” he said, but once again Jack didn’t let him finish. He pulled him into a hug and said quietly into his ear, “I forgive you.” He pulled back, holding the Doctor at arms’ length. “Forgive yourself, Doctor.”

The Doctor stared at him for a moment, and then he swallowed and smiled a little sadly. “I’ll try,” he said.

Jack smiled back. “Good,” he replied, as Martha and Donna joined the two of them by the fountain. It was the best he could hope for, really; and he would have Donna to help him along. He looked at her, radiant in the sunlight, and on impulse he grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a kiss. She squeaked in surprise and then kissed him back, her arms going around his neck. Martha giggled and the Doctor made an exasperated sound and said, “ _Jack!_ ”

He released Donna with a laugh. “It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” she replied, a little breathlessly. The Doctor gave an exaggerated sigh. “What, feeling left out?” Donna teased. “I know you got your share last night.”

The Doctor scowled, trying to hide his sudden blush, and all three of them laughed.

“Ready?” Jack asked Martha. She nodded, and kissed Donna on the cheek.

“See you in July?” she asked.

Donna grinned. “Of course!”

The Doctor looked blankly at the two of them. “Why? What’s in July?”

“Her wedding, you idiot,” Donna said.

“Oh.” He hesitated, scuffing his toe on the pavement again. “Am I invited?”

Martha laughed. She gave him a hug. “Of course you are. You’ll come?”

For a moment she thought he was going to sidle away and come up with an excuse not to, but he seemed to catch himself. He grinned. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Besides, I’ve never met this Tom of yours. I better make sure he’s all right, you know.” He straightened his tie self-importantly.

Martha rolled her eyes and exchanged a smile with Donna. “Don’t worry,” Donna said. “I’ll make sure he behaves.”

Martha laughed again at the indignant look he shot Donna. “Thanks,” she said, stepping back. “Right then. I’ll see you soon.” She took Jack’s hand and the two of them turned and walked away.

The Doctor and Donna stood in silence for a few moments, watching them go. “So,” the Doctor said eventually. “Where would you like to go first?” His tone was nonchalant, but Donna could see he was barely restraining himself from bouncing on his toes.

“First, I’d like to go home,” she said.

The Doctor stared at her, his hearts sinking into his stomach. “You—you don’t want to come with me?” he stammered.

She punched him lightly on the arm. “To _pack,_ ” she said. She took his hand and steered him back toward the TARDIS. “I’m not leaving you again,” she said. “Not ever.”

The Doctor winced. “Don’t say that. You’ll jinx us.”

“Well,” Donna said. “Then at least not until after I’ve seen those singing gardens. They’re not tone deaf, are they? Because that would just be wrong.”

He laughed. “They’re not tone deaf.”

“Good. And I quite fancy scuba diving.” She closed the TARDIS door behind them and followed the Doctor up the ramp to the controls. “After that, we’ll see.”

The Doctor smiled, his eyes twinkling. “I can live with that,” he said. “Welcome back, Donna Noble.”

She smiled back. “Mind if I do the honors?” she asked, reaching for the hand brake. The Doctor took a step back and gestured for her to go ahead.

“Be my guest.”

Donna pulled the lever and grabbed hold of the edge of the console as the familiar grinding of the engine started up, feeling like she had finally come home.  



End file.
